BEWARE OF AADHAAR SMART CARD

Everyone in our group housing society received this circular saying “Free Smart Aadhaar Cards – convert your regular Aadhaar Card to Smart Aadhaar Card” on 09 July from 11:00AM to 06:00PM. The location for doing so was indicated as the society’s Club House.

Unsuspecting initially, I went there with my father. They gave us a form to fill up with details like – Name, Email, Mobile no., Gender, Address, Occupation, Pincode, Aadhaar No., OTP – As soon as I read the “Occupation” field, I got a bit suspicious and then noticed the logo of “Future Generali Insurance” company. I asked the representatives there and they confirmed they were employees of the insurance company and said that the company had tied up with UIDAI to take up this task.

I then googled regarding these “Smart” Aadhaar Cards and the first 3 links gave me all the answers I needed. This is neither authorised by UIDAI nor have they tied up with Future Generali or any other company. In fact, UIDAI has issued warnings that such actions by these unscrupulous entities amounts to criminal offence and can lead to imprisonment.

For unsuspecting people, this is what the employees of Future Generali are doing – – Taking all the details on a form to collect data.– Going over to UIDAI website and filling those details.– Downloading the Aadhaar Card pdf using the OTP they are asking the users to provide.– They already know that the Pincode is the password of the pdf.– Now, sure enough they will provide the so called “Smart” Aadhaar Card in a week’s time to all the people, which is nothing but our own Aadhaar Card’s pdf printed on a plastic card.– More so, there is nothing smart about this card, its just your Aadhaar Card printed on piece of plastic.– But, they now have all the details of the people, along with their Aadhaar Cards, which is very dangerous as this can be heavily misused as a valid ID proof.

As I came back home, I checked again to make sure there is nothing official about these smart cards. I then called up the UIDAI helpline (1947) to confirm whether Future Generali is at all authorised with them – they clearly stated that its not. I told the helpline executive the whole modus operandi and he agreed that this is totally unauthorised and a criminal offence and registered a complaint after taking down the address.

Lets hope that the complaint reaches the right authorities at right time and strict action is taken against Future Generali, its employees and anyone else involved.

Also, more awareness needs to be created in order to prevent such scams in the future and strict law must also be there to act as deterrent against such acts.